ct and heart, and has had any wide or extended dominion;
that, from the nature of the human mind, time is necessary for the full
comprehension and perfection of great ideas; and that the highest and
most wonderful truths, though communicated to the world once for all by
inspired teachers, could not be comprehended all at once by the
recipients, but, as received and transmitted by minds not inspired, and
through media which were human, have required only the longer time and
deeper thought for their full elucidation. This may be called _the
Theory of Developments_."

It is further illustrated as follows: "It is sometimes said that the
stream is clearest near the spring. Whatever use may fairly be made of
this image, it does not apply to the history of a philosophy or sect,
which, on the contrary, is more equable, and purer, and stronger, when
its bed has become deep, and broad, and full. It necessarily rises out
of an existing state of things, and, for a time, savors of the soil. Its
vital element needs disengaging from what is foreign and temporary, and
is employed in efforts after freedom, more vigorous and hopeful as its
years increase. Its beginnings are no measures of its capabilities, nor
of its scope. At first, no one knows what it is, or what it is worth. It
remains, perhaps, for a time, quiescent; it tries, as it were, its
limbs, and proves the ground under it, and feels its way. From time to
time it makes essays which fail, and are, in consequence, abandoned. It
seems in suspense which way to go; it wavers, and, at length, strikes
out in one definite direction. In time it enters upon strange territory;
points of controversy alter their bearing; parties rise and fall about
it; dangers and hopes appear in new relations, and old principles
reappear under new forms; it changes with them, in order to remain the
same. In a higher world it is otherwise; but here below _to live is to
change, and to be perfect is to have changed often_."[92]

In answer to the objection, "that inspired documents, such as the Holy
Scriptures, at once determine the doctrines which we should believe," it
is replied, "that they were intended to create an idea, and that idea is
not in the sacred text, but in the mind of the reader; and the question
is, whether that idea is communicated to him, in its completeness and
minute accuracy, on its first apprehension, or expands in his heart and
intellect, and comes to perfection in the course of time